McCann Health Turns London's Landmarks Into Eyesight Tests

Are you having to squint to read this sentence? Come to think of it, when was the last time you got your peepers checked? 

Regular eye tests are an important part of taking care of ourselves and the health of our eyes - but it turns out that one in four UK adults haven’t had their eyes checked in the past two years, and 5 million aren’t even sure when they last had them checked at all.

In a bid to tackle the issue, and nudge time-poor Londoners into taking action, McCann Health London and OCO Opticians of Spitalfields are launching a clever OOH campaign, the Urban Eye Test.

Kicking off in popular east London locations - Brick Lane, Shoreditch and Spitalfields Market - this weekend, the campaign features floor panels inviting passersby to check their eyesight using landmarks dotted around the city. One test asks you what's the exact time on a clock tower, while others assess your ability to read the small print on street murals and road signs (that is, if you can drag your eyes away from your phone screen for one minute). 

If everything's looking a bit blurry, don't panic - a handy QR code on the panels enables you to schedule a free eye test with OCO via your smartphone and get yourself professionally checked out. The campaign will run for two weeks from Saturday 20 October. 

"It's an easy and innovative way to get Londoners to start thinking about their eye health by making them realise that their vision might not be perfect. Because vision deteriorates quite slowly, people often don’t realise there’s anything wrong," explains Jennie Hillyer, OCO co-founder and optometrist. 

"People are time poor," adds Adrian Parr, executive creative director EMEA, McCann Health. "We realised a natural human instinct is to put things off and ‘soldier on’ until they become critical. This idea builds on that insight and disrupts it in an unexpected way, to provoke and stimulate action."